


Trickster Time

by CrazyCatMeow



Series: The Meteor Effect [23]
Category: Hermitcraft
Genre: Defying Gravity - Freeform, Gen, Illusion Magic, Invisibility, Lore - Freeform, Magic, Pointed ears, Teleportation, Trickster - Freeform, laser pointer shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:22:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26808058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyCatMeow/pseuds/CrazyCatMeow
Summary: Nothing can be easy with Exy and he’s not having a fun time.
Relationships: Brothers - Relationship, best friends - Relationship
Series: The Meteor Effect [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1529078
Comments: 24
Kudos: 111





	Trickster Time

**Author's Note:**

> We have hit over 100,000 words!

The meteor or, Avar as they recently found out, has been silent for a while, and honestly Exy’s getting pretty nervous. It's never good when he goes silent like this. Last time it was late Beef was affected and that didn’t end well at all. 

Frowning slightly he walks through the nether, Exy looks for the base his friend had built. It’s well hidden amongst the craggy outcroppings of black stone.

When some of the hermits messed around with a cloning machine, It made someone. This person wasn’t vary nice when he first appeared. Threatening to destroy the server. He escaped into the nether and hasn’t been seen since. 

What the others don’t know, is that Exy’s in contact with him. When he first sought out the dark knight, Hels didn’t have the best reaction. He thought Exy was just another hermit trying to stop him. 

Over time Exy manages to gain his trust. Keeping him up to date on things happening on the hermitcraft server. Hels slowly is influenced by the gentle persuasion of Exy. Understanding that he wasn’t created on purpose and he doesn’t have to be evil and destroy things. Hels stays in the nether. Not wanting to face Welsknight.

As Exy walks into the cozy home he hands Hels a shulker full of food and water bottles, “Any chance that you’ll consider joining us in the overworld?”

“Not on your life,” The pail red-eyed man shoots him a mocking glare.

Rolling his eyes Exy sits down on the small couch, “Are you prepared to hear what the meteor’s done this time?”

“After last time? With the full transformations? Hit me with your best shot.”

“Ok, you asked for it,” Exy grins before starting, “Hypno was affected. The meteor was apparently really low on magic and for it to get more in a faster time he had to give Hypno magic. Xisuma had to go to the watchers for help, they gave him a spellbook so he could learn to use magic. After that happened he learned a spell that summoned a small dragon that helped him learn. The dragon was friends with a friend of the meteor. We know his name now, Avar. So, uh, yeah, he’s got magic now and we know the meteor’s name.”

“Hold up, the meteor is giving people magic now?”

“Umm, I guess.”

“Do you know who’s being affected next?”

“Me, apparently,” Exy shrugs.

“So why are you here?”

“To give you some company and food?”

With a sigh Hels stands up, “You don’t need to do this, at your expense.”

“But-“

“No excuses, you should go back,” With this Hels grabs Exys arm pulls him up, and walks back with him towards the portals.

As they near Exy’s communicator starts pinging wildly, “Uh oh.”

“What’s, Uh oh?” Hels hisses. 

“Meteor apparently is active again.”

“Not good, this is your brother’s portal?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you as soon as I can.”

Hels nods and slowly pushes Exy through the portal and backs away, “I’ll see you, just don’t force yourself.”

The moment Exy travels through the portal he blacks out. When he comes to he’s in his bed and Xisuma is staring at him concerned, his spikes and fur are all fluffed up with anxiety. His tail flicks sharply behind him.

“Oh, you’re awake. I found you passed out next to my portal.”

“X?” He slurs, “Wha-what time is it?”

“Almost midnight,” Xisuma says clearly exhausted.

“‘M sorry.”

“Don’t be, it's not your fault.”

There’s no response and Exy’s asleep again. Xisuma smiles fondly at his brother before dragging several blankets over and curling up on them, before falling asleep as well.

As the sun rises over the horizon, Xisuma yawns, fangs on full display. He stretches out a bit like a cat and stands up. He’s about to start heading into the kitchen when his tail gets caught on something. Frowning Xisuma turns around and wiggles his tail free from the blankets.

Unfortunately, this wakes Exy, he sits up groggily and opens his eyes. Xisuma jumps back with a slight start. His eyes are glowing.

“Xisuma? What’s going on?” Exy asks as he yawns, stretching.

“Your eyes are glowing,” He explains pulling a mirror out of a nearby drawer.

Exy’s face pails as he sees that his eyes are glowing bright white, “That’s Weird.”

“Is it affecting your vision at all?”

“Uhhh, no… I don’t think so.”

Xisuma looks thoughtful, “What do you want for breakfast?”

“Pancakes?”

“Pancakes it is.” 

As Xisuma leaves the room Exy falls back into his pillows. After a minute he stands up and walks into the kitchen.

The pair eat the pancakes in silence. As they finish their breakfast they head into the kitchen to clean up, Xisuma ends up doing most of the work. Nearing the end of the mess Exy suddenly starts swaying on his feet slightly. 

He grips the counter as the little color drains from his face. Xisuma rushes over and watches horrified as Exy floats up to the ceiling. 

Clearly starting to panic he thrashes around wildly. Xisuma calls up to him helping him calm down. As he loses energy he starts calming down. Flipping himself upside down he carefully kicks off the wall.

“X, I don't know how to land.”

Xisuma frowns, “Concentrate on your feet being on the floor?”

“I don't think that'll help, it feels like a shulker hit me.”

Reaching his hand up Xisuma grabs his brother's ankle, “Ok, here's what I want you to do. Try to concentrate on getting your feet on the ground.”

After a moment he starts floating down before landing nicely on the ground. The moment he stops concentrating he floats back up to the ceiling.

“This might be a problem.”

“Yeah.”

After many hours of trial and error, not much has changed Exy’s eyes are still glowing and it takes concentration for him to stay planted on the ground. Thankfully the upwards pull isn't strong enough to lift any extra blocks. So he can't take things that have been placed with him. If something hasn't been placed it's in his communicator so it's not too inconvenient for building. 

The temporary solution for if he can’t get back on the ground is fairly simple: he hides under something or he uses a lead to keep himself in place until someone comes to help him.

……..

It’s been a few days since Exy started ignoring gravity and he’s slowly getting the hang of it. Of course, there have been a few instances where he struggles to get down and inevitably ends up hanging onto someone until he can get inside. Since everyone’s been hanging around in the shopping district playing Decked Out he’s generally stayed over there.

Xisuma’s off helping Tango wrangle up some more ravagers after a few of them got pretty hurt after running into Xisuma’s spines and tail blade. After hearing what had happened, Tango simply asks for Xisuma’s help in gathering up some more.

Xisuma had left the dungeon covered in blood and was panicking a little bit as Tango rushed over concerned. He explains that he got backed into a corner and the ravagers wouldn’t stop going after him. After noticing they would shy away from the spikes he puffed them out as big as possible and ran as fast as possible.

Sliding down against a wall Exy sighs as he puts his head in his hands. The last few days had been absolute hell for him. His eyes have scared a few people and he can’t stay on the ground. Taking a deep breath he slowly stands up; taking extra care to remain on the ground and not hover he carefully makes his way into the auction house under the town hall. Since there’s not an auction currently happening the area isn’t frequented by the others. 

Letting himself float slightly off the ground he floats over to one of the tables and settles underneath it. He rubs at his face; having realized no one actually cared that his skin was abnormally pale and eyes red he had switched the helmet and armor out with normal clothing a few weeks ago. Grimacing he thinks, this probably isn’t going to end well for him. As far as Doc can gather the meteor’s turning him into some sort of trickster spirit.

A dull pain throbs in his ears as they slowly start to change shape. Exy closes his hands over them and sits there on the verge of tears for what feels like an eternity. 

Eventually, he hears footsteps on wet pavement. Looking up he sees Xisuma looking at him, deal concern filling his eyes, “Are you ok?”

He shakes his head no as he curls into his brother’s embrace.

“We're going home, we can make some hot cocoa and just kinda chill. Would that be good?”

Pulling his hands away from his ears Exy nods and starts to stand up. 

“We’re going to teleport, it’s pouring so the nether portal is all glitchy.”

“Pouring?”

“Yeah it’s kinda weird, it just came out of nowhere about ten minutes ago. It’s just in the shopping district as well so it’s pretty weird,” Xisuma says as he prepares to teleport.

They teleport and land on one of Xisuma’s roofs. Standing there for a moment, to regain their balance they look up at the sky which is rapidly growing cloudy.

“Hm, that’s odd,” Xisuma hums as he pulls out one of his admin panels to take a look at what’s happening.

A deafening crack splits the air and Exy screeches. The air smells of ozone as lightning strikes the ground near them. The brothers wince and hurry indoors. 

As they sit together the rain and lighting subside, “Ex, I think the weather might be tied to you.”

Sighing, Exy looks up at his brother, “You're probably right.”

“I can check your code and see what triggers it.”

“Please do.”

“It looks like the weather will only change in a three chunk radius and for particularly strong emotions,” Xisuma mutters while looking through his notes. 

“Ok, that is better than having to concentrate to stay on the ground.”

Xisuma frowns softly at his brother, “I suppose it is better.”

……..

Etho grins as he grabs Exys hand and drags him down to a reasonable height to be hovering off the ground. He’s found that it's a lot easier to float slightly off the ground than to try and force gravity to work. 

Groaning Exy allows Etho to bring him over to Xisuma's concrete shop.

“I'm going, to be honest, I thought you had already been affected,” Etho explains sitting down next to him.

“Nope, I just mess with commands a lot.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“Uh, thanks. I would have been stuck without your help.”

“No problem,” Etho waves as he walks off balancing on the side of the road, “I’ll see you around.”

Exy waves before wandering into the building, it's been a few days since the weather stuff so he has some form of control over it.

One of the machines makes a clunk and shudders before returning to its normal state. Exy is startled by this and jerks back a little bit. He ends up warping onto the roof. 

“What the?” He mutters as he hops off and floats down.

Just as he's about to touch the ground he teleports again. And again. It keeps happening as soon as he makes a conscious effort to move he ends up in a random spot. 

He slowly moves closer and closer to the edge of the shopping district. Suddenly he flickers underground and in an area filled with Redstone.

The teleports slow down and he very carefully pulls his Communicator out asking Xisuma to come and help him. A clang startles him and he ends up in the dungeon.

A snarl from right behind him scares him into action with a scream he ends up back on the surface and Xisuma is looking down at him worried.

“Are you ok?”

“I’ll be fine, I couldn’t stop teleporting,” Exy grumbles as he slumps into his brother’s embrace.

“That’s no fun,” Xisuma murmurs, “I’m going to head home you coming?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to try and figure out your teleporting issue?”

“Yes.”

As the day moves on Exy stops teleporting wildly and he slowly gets a handle on how to do it without getting hurt. They figure that the wild teleports are like hiccups spontaneous and you just have to wait for it to fade. When the teleports are happening like that it acts like chorus fruit, the location of where he lands is completely random. 

Otherwise, the teleports were fairly consistent. He’s not able to pinpoint the place he’ll land after teleporting but he can get pretty close.

“Ok, try to come to me,” Xisuma says his tail flicking,

Exy nods as he warps over to his brother, “Hey, That was really close.”

Xisuma grins as he gives him a high five, “That was great.”

Exy’s face brightens as he registers the words, he bumps into the wall and slides down to the floor, “Thanks Xisuma.”

As he gets the hang of teleporting he realizes, this can be used for pranks. It’s an unfortunate truth that much of the server has to deal with. He’s even managed to startle Etho by teleporting right behind him.

It was a truly glorious moment.

…….

As Exy bounces around the server just kinda getting used to everything. His control when teleporting has gotten much better and while it’s not exact it’s much better than before. He’s chasing Xisuma in the nether currently and he’s actually doing pretty well. Keeping pace with the drake like hybrid who’s running on all fours he grins. 

As they come to a stop at the nether portal Xisuma looks around and frowns a little, “I guess I lost him.”

“Who? It was only us out here,” Exy drawls from his spot above Xisuma. 

“Exy? Where are you?”

Rolling his eyes in exasperation, “Gee I wonder, look up you derp.”

Xisuma looks up his solid green eyes scanning the air not focusing on anything, “I hate to tell you this but I think you’re invisible.”

Floating down Exy grabs on to one of Xisuma’s horns, “I can still see myself, are you positive?”

“Yeah.”

With his free hand, Exy flops his hand over his eyes, “Fantastic.”

Xisuma shutters and carefully extends his spines before flattening them against his back, “Are you going to stay attached to my horns?”

“Yep. You’re never getting rid of me.”

“Fair, do you want to go to my base or your base?”

“Uh, yours.”

Xisuma nods and heads into the nether hub with Exy hanging onto his horns like a demented balloon.

As they reach Xisuma’s base Exy settles onto the couch he pulls a weighted blanket on top of his legs to keep himself in place as Xisuma walks in. His long tail flicks as he carefully curls up on the other side of the couch.

Xisuma pulls his mask off and rubs his face, “How are you holding up?”

“Hm, I don’t know. It’s just been really weird. Half the time I can’t control what’s happening. I just want to be normal,” The sky outside rumbles as a quiet rain starts to fall.

Moving closer Xisuma pats the air around his brother and when he finds him wraps him in a hug, “Me too, me too.”

The brothers fall asleep like that, and when they wake Exy’s form is flickering back and forth as if it’s trying to become visible but can’t.

With a quiet huff, Xisuma makes a call, asking if a certain ‘superhero’ friend of his brother could come to help him turn visible again. 

Worm-man readily agrees and heads out from his cave towards the jungle. As he arrives Xisuma gives him a knowing grin, “You’re looking a bit sheepish.”

“Oh, Haha, laugh all you want Mr. Void. Where’s Exy?”

“He’s still on the couch, I accidentally smacked him with my tail so he’s been sulking.”

Zed- er Worm-man nods, “I know your pain citizen.”

Rolling his eyes Xisuma shows him where Exy is. Worm-man looks over at a pile of blankets in the corner, “You have a lot of knitted blankets.”

“Spikes,” Xisuma explains, “I keep poking holes in normal blankets.”

Looking over, Exy spots Worm-man, and his face breaks into the biggest smile, although no one else could see it, “You’re here? I thought you stayed in season five?”

“I couldn’t let my favorite sidekick deal with this alone, could I?”

“I’m your favorite sidekick?” Exy whispers as he slowly starts to become less transparent.

“Absolutely! You’re amazing.”

Exy’s cheeks flush slightly from the praise as he slowly becomes fully visible.

“I think I know why you got stuck invisible, it might have been a panicked response when you became invisible you didn’t know what was happening so it acted like a defensive mechanism and wouldn’t let up until you felt completely safe.”

Nodding Exy carefully stands up and floats a few inches off the ground, “Thanks.”

“It was no problem at all.”

A few days later and Exy has figured out how to control turning invisible and Xisuma regrets everything. Floating, teleportation, and invisibility combined with a known prankster is a recipe for disaster.

Exy decides to get his laser pointer back out to have some fun with it. His first target is Xisuma. It wasn’t too hard to distract him. Carefully moving the laser in little circles around in the corner of his vision Xisuma can’t help but lose his focus on his conversation and pounce at the dot. He smiles fondly at Exy’s laughter that echoes throughout the auction area.

Doc is a little harder to find but is eventually located and much to his dismay is annoyed for about half an hour by a laser darting around the room before giving in and attempting to catch it.

His next target, Wels is asleep when he finds him. The half-dragon sleeping on a pile of golden nuggets mixed with blankets. Exy grins as he carefully pokes the slumbering dragon. As he wakes Exy quickly pulls his laser pointer out and wiggles it in front of him. The dragon backs up before growling playfully and jumping at the dot. At the smile stretching across Wels’ face, Exy continues with the laser for a while.

Exy finds an absolutely miserable looking Cub sitting at the entrance to his pyramid tail flicking in the sand, “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine, I just feel a bit off, like something I need to be doing isn’t getting done.”

“Didn't your Vex connection get heightened with the meteor? Could it be that?”

“You know what, you’re probably right,” Cub muses.

Exy grins and reaches into his pocket.

“Oh no you don’t,” Cub laughs, he’s heard about all the shenanigans that had happened using the now infamous laser.

…….

Rolling his eyes Exy hops off the roof and gently floats down to the road. He’s been waiting for Xisuma to finish his meeting with Keralis, it seems to have gone a few hours later than it’s supposed to. Sighing, he slowly starts floating around the shops. 

His eyes light up as he gets an idea, he pulls his elytra out and grabs some rockets. Clipping the artificial wings on he hovers slightly off the ground and prepares to fully take off. Jumping he fires a rocket and is up in the air. He’s going fast. Maybe a bit too fast…

With a screech Exy panickedly lands in the ocean, as he stops moving he realizes it’s night. A far off screech sounds and Exy grins, some poor sleep-deprived hermit who is getting targeted by phantoms.

A splash off to his side sounds as something collides with the water. Flinching back, the moon seems to flicker momentarily before it jumps to the horizon and the sun rises.

After a moment the chat is spammed by a rather delirious and grumpy Bdubs. Who is not happy that the sun came out of nowhere during one of his moonlight building sessions.

……..

Hypno grins as Max settles on Exy’s shoulders helping weigh him down so he can land safely on the ground. 

“Still having gravity problems?”

“Yeah, it kinda sucks.”

Max hums softly and carefully stretches to look Exy in the eyes, “You’re meant to have control over floating. You’ll probably gain control as time goes by.”

This makes Exy’s face light up considerably.

The three head into the nether and start walking along the path. Max flattens himself as he uses a snow spell around himself to keep from overheating. 

As they walk Hypno practices his illusion spell. Almost five minutes into the journey Max speaks up, “Why don’t you try the spell, you should be able to do it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re some sort of trickster, it should be an easy spell for you.

“What?”

Max sighs, “You have minor magical capabilities, nothing to fancy but you can cast illusions.”

“Oh,” As Exy thinks about what this means he attempts to make an illusion. Since he didn’t have anything in mind when he cast the spell it simply creates what he’s looking at. Which happens to be a strider.

After he attempts the spell nothing seems to happen. With a semi disappointed look, he turns to Hypno who is suppressing a laugh. 

“What?” Exy asks, getting a bit annoyed, “It’s my first time trying it’s not my fault nothing happened.”

“No not that, you definitely did something. You look like a strider dude.”

“Oh. How do I undo this?”

Max flaps over and undoes the spell for him, “Remember with illusions you need a clear target and you need to know what you’re making.”

Nodding Exy pays attention to the impromptu magic lesson.

A few days later he decides to attempt something he turns invisible and makes an illusion platform above the water. Tango flies by and swoops down towards the platform. Spreading his wings he slows down and attempts to land. With a startled squawk he falls for a few feet before snapping his wings open and flies off.

Exy laughs as he carefully brings himself down to the ground. His transformation hadn’t been too bad, hopefully, nothing bad happens to the next person.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope everyone has enjoyed reading, please leave a comment and let me know what you thought.
> 
> Etho is up next and he’ll be some sort of fox. If you have any requests along that line please let me know.


End file.
